Changing Chronic Disobedience In The Emotionally Disabled Child

Chronic disobedience is a major character trait of the emotionally disabled. Chronic disobedience is the action contrary to the directive of an authority figure such as a teacher or a parent. Sometimes the student needs to be reminded of the rules constantly and the reminder may be an attention seeking manipulation. Some traits of this type of student is rudeness and argumentative behavior. Getting out of their seat or acting out are other behaviors that can be attributed to this chronic disobedience.

As a parent or a teacher, set the rules of your class or household to include all members. Let the behavior child know that they are apart of the group and are expected to behave and follow rules as the rest of the class. When there is a deviance from the rules, avoid you will statements, like, "You will sit down or you will do your work." Instead, give the consequence for the infraction and hold your ground. For every consequence, you should also have a reward system put into place. When you observe compliance to the rules, have a reward, either physical or verbal, ready to give.

Have the student, if they are ready, monitor their own behavior. Have a check sheet with different behaviors for them to avoid on them at all times. Each hour let them check off the good behaviors and the bad behaviors and own their own behavior. Owning their own behavior is the first step to changing the behavior and achieving behavior modification success.